Come Live with Me

Clarence Brown's 1941 romantic comedy opens with a Viennese refugee under threat of deportation entering a marriage of convenience with a writer she does not know, in order to stay in the country. Johnny, played by Hedy Lamarr, pays a weekly sum to James Stewart's penniless author on the condition that they stay out of each other's lives. The template is predictable, but the background is not: in 1941 the position of refugees fleeing Europe was rarely stated this plainly in a Hollywood comedy. The rapport between Stewart and Lamarr carries the film. Brown keeps the comedy gentle and, by moving the last section to a country town, turns the tone almost pastoral. That Lamarr plays a refugee here carries an extra layer, since she had fled Austria herself. Who it's for: viewers interested in classic Hollywood romantic comedy and in the work of James Stewart and Hedy Lamarr. Who it's not for: anyone whose interest dies once the marriage-of-convenience template announces its destination, or who will find the period's pacing slow.